A common method for forming mineral fibers involves supplying molten mineral material to a centrifuge having a plurality of holes in its peripheral wall, and centrifuging the mineral material through the peripheral wall to form fibers. The fibers can be further attenuated with a blower or a combustion chamber burner, or can be merely deflected downwardly by a non-attenuating blower to form a generally cylindrical veil of fibers. It is desirable to distribute the fibers uniformly across the width of the collecting surface, and it is a common practice to utilize nozzles emitting air or steam blasts to periodically deflect the veil for distribution of the fibers into a wider pack.
One of the problems associated with the fiber deflection systems of the prior art is that there is no coordination between the operation of the veil deflecting apparatus and the speed of the moving collecting surface. In mineral wool fiberizing systems having a plurality of fiberizers to direct fibers onto one collecting surface, the addition or deletion of one or more fiberizers usually requires an increase or decrease in the speed of the moving collecting surface. Changes in the speed of the collecting surface without resulting changes in the pattern of deflecting the fibers onto the collecting surface can result in degradation of the uniformity of the pack of mineral fibers. The present invention is directed toward a system for collecting mineral fibers in which the deflection of the veils of fibers is accomplished in response to the speed of the collecting surface.